Well, if you were wondering how the district gifted and talented test scores stacked up for this past testing (in January – Feb. 2013) the results are in! As you can see below, the number of 99th percentiles for the NNAT-2 and OLSAT test increased dramatically compared to the previous year. Overall, the biggest increase seems from District 2 and 3 in Manhattan and District 20, 24, 25 and 26 in Brooklyn. I’m still puzzled how so many more children qualified for the NYC G&T program compared to the previous years since the NNAT test seems like it would be much more difficult, at least from the practice questions that are on TestingMom.com.

Gifted and talented test results for New York City by district. Includes district scores for Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a lawsuit claims New York City’s gifted and talented testing process is flawed. A group of parents filed the lawsuit against the Dept. of Ed. late in the afternoon Thursday, May 16, 2013. The group of parents claim the sibling preference in scoring isn’t fair due to the number of limited seats available for the must sought after gifted and talented program here in NYC. The DOE did change the sibling policy for scoring preference in October 2012 but soon retracted it due to parents complaining about the change – all of whom have more than one child so it was somewhat of a self-serving complaint against the DOE. The DOE did originally stated in their G&T handbook in October 2012 that there will be a drastic change to the sibling policy for G&T placement which was basically making it a fair playing level field. This was then removed from the gifted and talented testing handbook in January 2013.

I do feel for these parents who had to go to the extreme of filing a lawsuit against the department of education but when there’s little to no communication from this establishment there’s no other recourse except working through the legal system. We’ll see what happens next. Just when I thought the ongoing snafus from the department of ed. would end…well, I was totally wrong on that one. We’ll see how this impacts the future scoring of the NNAT-2 test and OLSAT test for this coming school year. That is, if the DOE will even use these tests any longer due to Pearson’s (the test publisher) screw ups.

Well, the updated gifted and talented test results have arrived! Since the big snafu with Pearson, the test publisher of the Naglieri Non-verbal Abilities Test (NNAT-2) and Otis Lennon School Abilities Test (OLSAT). Yep, the 4 year olds in New York City are by all standards a cut above their peers across the nation. This NYC water does taste super crisp and clean but now I’m wondering if there’s a shot of G&T prep sprinkled in to get these types of results that go way outside the standard deviation of when the test was actually developed with a national sample.

According to the results below almost 32.4% of the children who took the gifted and talented test this year qualified while a mere 24.5% from last year. I suppose you’re asking yourself, how is this even possible with the addition of the much more difficult NNAT-2 test. Yes, I have the same question myself.

Test results of the NYC gifted and talented for 2012-13 of qualified district and city-wide seats.

Well folks, if you haven’t heard there’s yet another blunder with the gifted and talented test results this year. It seems that Pearson, the test publisher for both the NNAT test and the OLSAT test, made another huge mistake on almost 200 test scores for our talented tots in New York City. According to the DNA Info article, the Dept. of Ed. is playing the blame game against Pearson for their inadequacies in scoring the test. It’s interesting how the DOE leaves out the fact they lost over 400 tests just few weeks ago but I guess it’s easier to deflect blame to Pearson since they are the ones making millions of dollars on the administration of these tests to our kids here in New York.

So, now we have even kids qualifying for a seat into the G&T program and the department of ed has extended the deadline for school applications to Tuesday, May 15. I suppose it can’t get any worse than this but then again, I said that couple of weeks ago and look what happened.

Stay tuned for even more drama and make sure you sign-up for free practice questions on Testing Mom web site.

Well, it looks like there’s something in the water in District 2 and District 3 in Manhattan! With the recent debacle of the G&T test scores it now looks like there are even more talented tots strolling around the streets of lower Manhattan and the UWS.

I’m not sure how the DOE is going to explain this one, if they will talk to anyone about it that is. Numerous press outlets and upset parents have demanded answers without avail. According the DNA Info article is seems now that over 50% of the kids in both District 2 and 3 qualified for a coveted seat in the NYC gifted and talented program. Not sure how this is even statistically possible considering the NNAT-2 test is supposedly much more difficult than the BSRA test it replaced from years in the past. This makes getting a district-wide seat in District 2 or 3 next to impossible unless your child scores in the 97th percentile or above.

TestingMom.com has been inundated with disgruntled parents complaining about the ongoing saga created by the Department of Ed. without any satisfactory resolution of the scoring situation.

G&T school tours which were suppose to end two weeks ago have now been extended through this week and school selections from parents are due this Friday, May 10 by midnight. We’ll see if there’s any more drama that comes up over the next few days. I hope not but at this point nothing would surprise me.